


Take The Current As It Serves

by Akshi



Category: Good Wife (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-21
Updated: 2011-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-27 17:04:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/298068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akshi/pseuds/Akshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cary Agos post-Lockhart/Gardner. Spoilers for Season Two, Episode Eighteen ("Killer Song").</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take The Current As It Serves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [summerstorm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerstorm/gifts).



_Drive on out, you wanna drive on out._  
The girl is alone in the blink of an eye.  
I tell her to drive, drive and – bitch, don’t cry,  
The city’s too bright…

 _Drive on out, where no one can see,_  
Drive on out under the Christmas tree.  
Popcorn smell, that won’t come off,  
The bloody cowguard, it won’t come off.

* * *

It's snowing when Cary begins his morning run. The sky's still dark and flakes drift down and vanish on the wet concrete as he runs, the vast grey expanse of the lake on his right. His breath puffs out, white and startling against the cold air.

He's not looking forward to work. Geneva's on leave for the day - he has a hunch she's interviewing again - and Matan Brody's dumped a pile of shit on his desk, cases that no one in their right mind would want to take on. He doesn't think he's imagining the glint of satisfaction in Matan's eyes whenever he pushes another case onto Cary's desk. Today Cary's got to stand up in court and argue that a man who'd kidnapped, tortured, raped and killed a woman shouldn't be released from jail. He's pretty sure the guy's going to walk regardless of how well he does his job.

So it says something about the rest of the cases on his docket that Cary's happier thinking about the Jarvis Bowes case than any of the rest: the domestic violence case where the wife had gone back on her statement against her husband; the gang murder that had left ten people dead with no credible witnesses; the hit and run with a suspect about to be released because of inconclusive physical evidence.

But impossible cases fall under the rubric of the normal shit he's had to deal with ever since he joined the SA's office. Working his way up from the bottom again; having to prove himself to hypercompetitive colleagues again; pulling the same late nights _again_ for half the fucking salary. He doesn't grudge it. It's part of the game and Cary's never been afraid of hard work. Every time he stands up against his former colleagues and wins, a hot surge of satisfaction runs down his stomach. He knows it's petty. He doesn't care. As far as he's concerned, it's the best perk being an Assistant State's Attorney offers.

No, that's not what's bothering him. It's the three am call from Kalinda. He _hates_ being woken at odd hours. It's become a running joke in his family that it's safer to let him sleep in on family holidays rather than risk his wrath by waking him up. He hadn't been able to curb the first sarcastic response – _What am I doing? Making an omelet, what do you think?_ – and then he'd come alive to that note in her voice and started paying attention. He's never heard Kalinda sound so panicked. He's never heard her sound panicked, period. And he's as clueless about why after the phone call as he was before.

He has a lot of time for Kalinda, but he wishes that she'd make it easier for her friends to help her.

* * *

Court goes just about as well as Cary expects it to. Cary doesn't have to fake the visceral disgust in his voice when he shows the picture of Mallory Cerone's mutilated corpse. He can see Cerone's daughter sitting in the gallery next to Alicia, her eyes fixed in a basilisk stare on the picture. It doesn't make a difference; Bowes' psychologist states under oath that the killer is a changed man.

It's the first time in a while that he's happy Lockhart/Gardner's involved with a case he's working on. Their civil suit against Bowes for intentional infliction of emotional distress is the last obstacle to Bowes earning an obscene amount of money for writing a song celebrating his crimes.

Cary thought he'd gotten over his crusader tendencies in the Peace Corps. He's played in the big leagues for a while since he left Belize, working as a defence attorney for a variety of morally dubious clients. He's no longer that earnest boy in khaki shorts and sandals handing out pamphlets on HIV/AIDS prevention to villagers and getting splinters in his hands building huts. And yet every rape and domestic violence case that comes across his desk still has the power to make his gorge rise. That Jason Bowes could become a millionaire off the rape and murder of an innocent woman: it makes him want to throw things.

"He's out in a week," he tells Alicia flatly. "So now it's up to you guys to keep him from getting rich."

She nods. He eyes her for a moment, then tells her to tell Kalinda to stop worrying: there aren't likely to be any more Grand Jury subpoenas. "Good to know," she says, "I'll tell her." Cary isn't fooled; he hasn't missed the flicker of surprise on her face. Why hasn't Kalinda confided in Alicia about this?

* * *

Once, at a high school forensics tournament, he'd been up against a girl who'd just lost her father. She'd gotten through her extempore piece only by force of will, her eyes red-rimmed, and her voice wobbling every third sentence. When Cary stood up after her, he couldn't focus. All the verve and the humour he'd shown in his practice sessions vanished and he stumbled painfully from the start to the end of his speech. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the team coach's lips drawing tighter. It was the first time in two years of competition that he didn't place.

Later, the coach had cut short his defensive explanations. "Cary," he said, wearily, rubbing his eyelids with his thumbs, "a year from now, it's not going to matter to anyone - including that girl - that your heart was in the right place. Only that you were there to compete and you couldn't get it together."

* * *

Cary squirms when he thinks about it now, but in that last month at Lockhart/Gardner he'd spent a not insubstantial amount of time worrying about Alicia's prospects after he got the job. He'd been worried for her, so sure there was no way she'd win. The embarrassment had given an extra edge to his resentment of Alicia for months after he left the firm.

Cary's always prided himself on understanding the hidden rules running the system he's working within. He'd worked his ass off at Lockhart/Gardner to get the highest billable hours; he'd spent hours schmoozing his peers and the equity partners over coffee and drinks and at every single firm event; he got in earlier and left later than anyone else. More than anything else, his fatal mistake was to peg Alicia as naïve. Unable to take advantage of the relationship she had with Will. Older, preoccupied with her children and her husband, _slow_. Smart, dedicated and a Rottweiler in court, but so slow, weighed down with all that baggage and those twenty extra years. Not a threat.

He's never felt as stupid as when he realised she'd played the system better than he had. If he thought about it harder, he'd have to admire her, because he'd have done the same damn thing in her place. But in the first few months after he’d been fired, with embarrassment and rage and all those wasted all-nighters burning white-hot in him, self-righteousness had been easier.

It took a month before he could make himself tell his father.

* * *

Cary likes it when people underestimate him. It makes it so much easier for him to cut them off at the knees. Or, if he's trying to impress them, to exceed their expectations. Kalinda was a case in point. She'd had him parcelled up in five seconds, with one quick sweep of those dark eyes: spoiled, arrogant, not worth knowing. Her opinion of him had dripped from her voice each time they spoke. _I'm knowable, but just not to you._ He'd been piqued, then intrigued.

Now they're far beyond that point. At least, he thinks he is. He'd be lying if he said he didn't fantasise about her once in a while, but he's fairly sure all the men who meet Kalinda (and a fair share of the women) fantasise about her. It's the way she carries herself; she exudes sex. Fantasies aside, though, she's a friend, first and foremost. He's willing to go above and beyond for her.

But Cary's conversation with Matan goes even worse than the Bowes court session. He gets nothing on how Matan's interview with Blake went and why Kalinda would be so worried about it. Worse, Matan puts him on the defensive, and then backs off with a half-assed apology. Cary's getting a splitting headache and it isn't even lunch yet.

* * *

He's strongly tempted to tell Geneva about his conversation with Matan when she's back in the office the next day. Geneva has an unfortunate tendency to call a spade a bloody shovel, but she's the closest thing he has to a mentor here. She's not a big fan of Kalinda's, though, so when they run down to grab a coffee, he contents himself with asking Geneva what's crawled up Matan's ass and died.

She shrugs, a corner of her mouth turning up. "Same thing as usual, Cary." Her hands curl around her macchiato, picking at the edges of the corrugated cardboard.

Cary knows. Matan is shitting bricks with every week that brings Peter Florrick another step closer to the SA's office. Closer to dealing out retribution to everyone who'd jumped ship. It's another thing about Matan that makes Cary's lip curl; no one with half a brain would ever have assumed Florrick would stay down and out forever. But complaining about Matan is part of Cary's routine now. No one else makes half as good a punching bag.

"Plans for the weekend?" Geneva asks.

"Yeah, I've got a friend visiting."

She grins. "Have fun."

* * *

Luisa flies into Chicago from Seattle again. She has a conference on women’s development in emerging countries the next week, but her weekend is all Cary's. They head out to a bar the minute she gets in on Friday night, spend the night doing shots and wake up after noon on Saturday.

They make French toast in the kitchen and eat it on the bed, watching TV. Luisa hooks a foot over his ankle, sighs contentedly and reaches over the side of the bed for her bag. Unlike that disastrous day at his former firm, Cary's made damn sure he won't be called in to work this weekend. He doesn't hesitate to take a long drag off the joint Luisa rolls. They pass it back and forth a few times till the air around them is redolent with sweet smoke.

Cary's pleasantly stoned when Luisa pushes him onto his back and moves down his body. She jacks him to full hardness lazily, presses open-mouthed kisses over his hip, and slides a condom over his dick with her teeth. She sits up and braces her hands on his thighs; tips her head back as she takes him into her. Her mouth drops open and she moves slowly, languidly, frowning in concentration. Cary wonders what it says about him that he finds this ridiculously hot - that she seems completely unaware he exists except as a tool for her pleasure. Later he plans to go down on her. He's done it before: eaten her out for hours, mouthing and sucking at her till his chin glistens wetly and Luisa's incoherent and fucked out under him.

Cary smoothes his hands along her legs and runs his thumbs down over her clit, one after the other in rhythmic strokes. She moves more urgently, ivory skin sheened with sweat, pushing in sharp surges until they tumble over the edge together.

Sprawled boneless on the bed, he feels Luisa run a palm down his chest. "Best fuck in the Midwest, Cary. I should give you a medal."

"I feel used."

"Bitch, please, you know you love it."

Cary smiles without bothering to open his eyes.

* * *

Cary spends the first half of the next week pushing paper and going through court session after court session. The domestic violence case gets dropped, despite his best efforts to convince the wife to change her mind. She's sporting a glorious black eye and bruises on her neck and arms, but she shakes her head silently, no, no, no, regardless of what he says.

Some days he really hates his job.

He gets an update from Alicia on the civil suit against Bowes as well. Grabs Kalinda during one of the court sessions to tell her about Blake's interview with Matan. It's as frustrating as his last conversation with her. He keeps trying to reassure her that she's not going to be subpoenaed, which is the only thing he can reasonably imagine she'd be worried about, and she has this abstracted look on her face, as if he's missed the point entirely. He can't understand what's going on with her and Alicia.

At least the next time they speak, it's because they’re giving him the first good news he's gotten that week. Rhonda Cerone thinks the lyrics of Bowes' song might refer to another woman's murder. Cary pulls up the file from records with Alicia and Kalinda. It's perfect: Lynne Boyle, twenty-eight years old, mother of two, carjacked at her workplace and forced to drive to a field where she'd been raped and murdered. Even the Christmas tree allusion fits. Now they just need to get Bowes to admit to it. They beam at each other and Cary feels a brief pang of nostalgia for his Lockhart/Gardner days.

* * *

Kalinda and Alicia brief Will Gardner on the new strategy. Later, Cary walks in halfway through Will's cross-ex of Bowes:

"And the allusion to forcing a victim to pull over beside the field...why did you change those lyrics?"

"I thought it was melodramatic," Bowes says.

"And yet fairly realistic, given how you killed her."

"I've tried to block those memories."

"So you don't remember how you killed her? So the song could be based on your crime?"

Bowes' lawyer objects. She sounds bored.

Two minutes later, when Will goes in for the kill and Bowes inadvertently admits to Lynne Boyle's murder, she looks a lot less bored. Cary gives Will a thumbs up; he'd forgotten how good his ex-boss was at this.

After a short recess the judge votes to dismiss the civil suit. Bowes is buoyant, bounding over to Rhonda Cerone to apologise, and then to Alicia to discuss hiring her for a suit against illegal downloads. When Cary arrests him, flanked by the court bailiffs, he looks ludicrously surprised. Cary doesn't think he's ever enjoyed Mirandizing someone quite this much before.

Some days Cary really likes his job.

* * *

The next day, Cary oversleeps and has to miss his morning run. He's still worried about Kalinda. It looks like another week of Matan being his most annoyingly Matan. His first latte of the day is barely keeping him awake after the previous night's late finish. And yet -

The wind cutting across his cheeks is bracing as he walks from the subway to the office. The winter morning sun slides through his window and paints his desk in pale stripes. He thinks he might have a new angle on the gang murder that had stumped him the week before. Cary hangs his coat behind his door, loosens his tie and gets to work.

**Author's Note:**

> Dear Yuletide recipient,
> 
> I hope you enjoy the story. Thank you very much for making this request: I'm not sure if my story will work for you, but I had so much fun researching and writing it. I got to re-watch the first season, read a bunch of very entertaining blog reviews, and look up all kinds of random things including Peace Corps projects in Belize; prep schools in America; and the price of Brioni suits (some of this stuff didn't make it into the story, sadly).  
> More than anything writing this helped me remember why I love Cary (and the rest of the characters on The Good Wife) so much.
> 
> Thanks again - have a lovely holiday!


End file.
